Creating Harmonious Relationships: A Practical Guide to the Power of True Empathy

By Andrew LeCompte

Creating Harmonious Relationships: a Practical Guide to the Power of True Empathy, Revised Edition, is empowering in a heartfelt way. It teaches the reader how to communicate wisely and effectively with other people. The basic technique is easy to grasp, and it is taught in a step-by step manner. It teaches how to listen in a way that invites the other person to open up and disclose what is really bothering them while also encouraging them to turn what might be their negative complaint into a positive hope. This is the use of "true empathy." It is particularly useful in defusing an argument when emotions are running high.

"True empathy" involves first acknowledging the other person's feeling state, as in "Are you upset because…?" This guess shows concern for the other person's feeling state and invites their correction. They might say, "I'm angry at you because you've only been criticizing my idea." Then you guess at what their positive hope might be that is behind their feeling criticized. You might reply, "So you're angry because what you really want is some positive support." Then they will supply what their hope is, in this case probably involving some kind of help. This defuses their emotional energy.

Hopes are a key concept in interpersonal communication. We are all motivated to get our hopes met. Hopes are such things as to be heard and understood, to be accepted. These are connection hopes. We also have freedom hopes such as to be free to express our creativity and to be treated with honesty. Hopes are positive needs that can be met without infringing on someone else. They are at the heart of effective conflict resolution.

This method of communicating is the culmination of techniques that have been practiced and refined over many decades. Thousands of people have learned and benefited from the first edition of Creating Harmonious Relationships: a Practical Guide to the Power of True Empathy. The book was sold out and the much awaited Revised Edition is now here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798988748335

Andrew LeCompte

With a master's degree in Humanistic Psychology in Organizations, and practical life experience, Andrew LeCompte developed a deeper method of interpersonal communication, which involves tapping into each person's emotions and what they are most hoping for. He then taught empathic speaking and listening skills to couples and to people in schools, colleges, civic groups, legal practices, hospitals, pharmaceutical and financial corporations. As President of the Let's Talk training group he led leadership, management, and organizational development programs. Countless boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, have used this way of talking with each other to enhance their relationships. Creating Harmonious Relationships: a Practical Guide to the Power of True Empathy shows, step-by-step, how to form better connections. The first edition of this book sold out and was later translated into Turkish. The long-awaited revised edition will be released on January 24, 2024!

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Introduction

Difficulties in Relationships

Think of a relationship or a conflict you had with someone that ended unhappily. What bothered you the most about it? Remember what the other person did. What were you thinking and how were you feeling? If you’re like most of us, you’ve agonized about these painful relationships and wondered what went wrong. You’ve blamed the other person, and in your secret heart you’ve blamed yourself.

Still, you’re a compassionate person, and, even though your feelings were hurt and you said things you regretted, deep down you really cared about the other person and wish things had gone better. If you could rewind the great videotape of life and repair the damage, you would.

Now, you are determined not to repeat the same mistakes. You work hard to keep your relationships healthy and fulfilling, struggling with issues as they appear in your daily life. Here are some of the situations you might be encountering:

•Each time you and your spouse have to make a decision involving conflicting needs, you feel like you get the short end of the stick. When you both are upset and need support, when there’s a choice of where to go together for a long weekend, or who needs a new car, you feel that your contributions are not acknowledged and that you’re getting less. As a result you begin to feel bad about the relationship and yourself.

•Your boss criticizes something you worked hard on, after you stayed late and used your own personal time. You’re left feeling unfairly judged and angry. You worry about your future with this company.

•A friend complains to you continually. When you talk on the phone you find yourself timing her to find out how much time she takes up in the conversation. You like her, but you start resenting the relationship because you feel like you don’t matter.

•Every time you decide to make a major change, such as switching your career so you can do the work you love, your parents tell you you’ll never succeed, and they advise you to go for the steady pay check instead. You’re disappointed not to receive the love and support you’d been hoping for and wish you’d never told them anything.

The question is: How can you make sure you don’t end up with another painful relational conflict or loss? This is a core issue because we’re questioning our essence—whether we are good or bad. We conceive a self-image from how we are in our relationships, and this conception determines every aspect of our lives.

Recognizing the importance of this question in my own life, I embarked on a twenty-year search to find real answers. In the last five years I succeeded, finding and refining a simple but powerful way to understand and empathize with people that went beyond all other methods. The results are contained in this book. Here is my story…

How I Learned to Communicate

I know about ineffective communication from personal experience. My family boasted a doctor father and a mother who was powerful in local politics. Both had lively and critical intellects. Back then, however, we were inept at talking about our feelings, so certain experiences dominated my awareness. My father’s outbursts of rage terrified me, and my most vivid early memory is of being paddled with a board in the garage. On the basis of such encounters I determined that I was a bad person. In the isolation of my childhood I didn’t know there was another way of relating.

I honed my critical skills, and in high school my talent for pointing out other people’s deficiencies earned me the nickname, the cynic. I remember saying loudly into the hush just after a kid dropped his tray in the cafeteria, Smooth move, bowels. I felt a glow hearing the laughter around me, but that kid hated me.

I wanted a pretty girlfriend, convinced she would save me from my aching sense of inadequacy. Her love and unfailing support would bring me the security and happiness I craved. I never came close. I was too shy to talk to girls I liked, never mind asking for a date. I soon learned that bourbon took the edge off, and kept my dreams alive in romantic fantasies.

My friendships with men didn’t fare much better. I had a good friend, Ray, for a while in college. We got an apartment together, but he started doing unacceptable things, like leaving dirty dishes in the sink. One day I had enough and, not knowing how to confront him, I piled the dishes, greasy frying pan and all, onto his bed. Later I decided he just wasn’t good enough and moved out.

With hindsight, I see I wasn’t just a poor communicator, I was also unconscious of what was going on inside me. I lived in reaction to other people and used addictive behaviors to mask my inner pain.

I felt closer to my older brother, Tony, than to anyone else in my family. When I was nineteen, Tony died by suicide. My parents came to be with me at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. But, typically for my family, we didn’t grieve. That night I shared a hotel room with my father. Lying in bed, I thought about how whenever my brother came to the house the first thing he would say was, Is Andy home? I really missed him. Remembering our close connection, I let out a few moaning sobs.

My father said, Andy, are you alright?

From lack of experience connecting at a feeling level, I took his question to mean that crying made him uncomfortable and said, Yeah, I’m OK, and stopped.

Repressing my grief took its toll. I got a severe case of infectious mononucleosis and developed an ulcer, neither of which was diagnosed for months. I lived a thousand miles from home and was convinced I was dying. Then I began to have panic attacks. Waves of terror would surge through me and I’d immediately have to get to a safe place. I told no one about these attacks, fearing I was insane and would be locked in a mental institution. I waited it out for a year and a half, as the attacks slowly lessened.

Although I didn’t have friends, I was fortunate to be a good student. I obtained a B.A. in History at the University of Wisconsin and an M.A. at the University of California, winning several fellowships. Happiness in relationships, however, eluded me.

The first positive change to my way of life came in the early 1970s. At the urging of a girlfriend, I began to meditate. Meditation allowed me to become aware of my thoughts. I saw that my mind generated thoughts all by itself and that there was a conscious me who could observe these thoughts. This gave me a new perspective on myself. I realized I had a choice; I could decide which thoughts I wanted to entertain. I didn’t need to let myself be controlled by my initial feeling-reactions to other people.

Not long after beginning to meditate, I realized the way I had been living was not bringing me happiness, so I quit my doctoral program in history and began to read psychology. Two authors in particular, Carl Rogers and Viktor Frankl, had a profound influence on me.

In On Becoming a Person Carl Rogers describes the healing power of unconditional positive regard. He validated something most of us know from personal experience, that it feels incredibly good to be listened to and understood by someone who sees only the good in us. His ideas resonated deeply in me. I wanted personal confirmation that I was a good person, and I wanted to experience this in my relationships with others.

I had a negative attitude about life. Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, said the last of the human freedoms [is]– to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…. It is this spiritual foundation – that cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

I wanted to find that same meaningful conviction. But I knew there was a difference between simply reading Frankl’s words about choosing one’s attitude and personally integrating that truth. Frankl gained his knowledge the hardest way imaginable: surviving three years in Auschwitz while his father, mother, brother and wife all died at the hands of the Nazis. Frankl explained that there are other ways besides suffering to discover the meaning of life. I was intent on finding meaning in as direct a way as possible.

I entered the most intensive experiential psychology training program I could find. I participated in individual, couples, and group psychotherapy. I taught assertiveness training, transactional analysis, and parent education, earning a second Masters degree in humanistic psychology and organizational development. I then took a series of jobs training executives to manage people effectively.

I became successful and was asked to join the Executive Board of my chapter of the American Society for Training and Development. In the late 1980s I began to consult independently. Although I was highly skilled professionally, my personal life was a series of disasters; my marriage was a good example.

In my psychology program, I fell in love with a woman who was forthright in her humanistic convictions. Yet once I married her, I found I had little ability to articulate my feelings or hopes in personal, intimate situations. I wasn’t able to tell her when I felt hurt, sad or afraid. I feared she would see me as weak and would reject me, so I hid those thoughts and feelings. I then projected my inability to communicate onto her and resented her for not being able to guess what I really wanted. After several years I had stored up enough grievances against her to justify to myself that she was an inconsiderate, unloving person. We divorced.

I expected that when she left the trouble in my life would go with her. But as I sat in my silent house, I was shocked to discover that I was only the shell of a person. I lay on the bed with no life energy, unable to work. Then the panic attacks came back. I realized that my life didn’t work. I wasn’t better than other people; and trying to be right in my judgments of them made things worse. My worldview was bankrupt. I hit a terrible bottom of despair, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

By now, however, I had a wonderful young son. Rather than give him up, I began to look harder for answers.

I reentered psychotherapy and found myself unable to cry. I committed myself to learning how. I put together a crying folder of pictures of my son and my brother. I wrote a description of the day my son, in the hopes of keeping his parents together, first accepted putting on his Sunday clothes without a fuss. I wrote about how great I felt the day I beat my brother at chess and my exultation when I finally pinned him wrestling. Tony said that I was just getting too strong for him. It was only years later that I recalled he had a genius IQ, was six years older than me and was the undefeated captain of his wrestling team. He had let me win at chess and at wrestling because he loved me.

Looking though this file I could begin to cry; then I would keep myself at it, even talking out loud, telling my son I was sorry, telling my brother I was grateful for all he’d done for me and that I wished I could have been there for him, too. After crying hard I would feel deeply relieved. The panic attacks stopped and never came back.

I also went to support groups and began to develop an inner life. At one of these groups I met Cary, a man with a past as tortured as mine. But he was now happy and serene. I noticed him because when he told his story he cried and was unashamed. I gained the courage to ask him to sponsor me. He became my good friend, the first man with whom I could be completely honest and not made to feel ashamed for feeling weak or afraid. Cary also attended meetings to discuss the book, A Course in Miracles, and invited me to come along.

The course provided me with some important understandings: that I was essentially good, and that my inaccurate perception of other people led me into conflict with them. Forgiving them would lead me to inner peace. By forgive the course means to stop judging other people on incomplete evidence and see and accept their goodness instead. The course gave me a better understanding of my mind, pulling together much of what I had already learned. But how to apply this abstract knowledge in face-to-face emotional conflict situations still eluded me.

In 1993, my music teacher handed me a videotaped presentation by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication. As I watched Marshall interacting with people I suspected he had what I was looking for. I decided to participate in one of his intensive weekend workshops.

Dr. Rosenberg listened closely, his eyes intent, his body still and open. I was moved by his ability to connect at a feeling level with participants and to facilitate healing of old wounds. He did a role-play with a young woman who wanted to forgive the dying father who had abused her. Marshall helped her to say what she really felt, that in spite of the anger at the trauma she had experienced at his hands, in spite of her sadness at being unable to find happiness with men, she still loved her father. As Marshall role-played her father, I could understand how much he loved his daughter and how horrible he felt about what he had done to her. As her old pain surfaced, was released and replaced by love, everyone in the room was deeply moved. Her healing helped us all.

I saw in Marshall’s nonviolent communication model a way to connect at the heart that transformed people’s attitudes toward each other. It was unconditionally loving. Attacker and defender, victimizer and victim, were gently moved from what at first appeared to be intractable differences to mutual understanding and appreciation. Here were improvements on everything I had learned so far about communication and a way to put into practice what I had studied in A Course in Miracles.

The following year I completed Marshall Rosenberg’sFacilitating Nonviolent Communication Training program in Switzerland. It was a life-changing experience for me. I learned that it wasn’t just Marshall Rosenberg who could transform perception and resolve deep conflicts harmoniously. Anyone could grasp and apply these skills. I committed myself to mastering and teaching them.

When I returned to the United States, my personal life changed dramatically for the better. Practicing the skills, I became more conscious, forgiving and happy. I am now in a healthy intimate relationship and engaged to be married. My relationship with my former wife has turned from bitterness to positive cooperation. She recently invited me to her housewarming party. After twenty years of icy silence, I have established a warm connection with my old friend Ray. And my son’s teacher told me she had overheard him telling a classmate, I have a great dad.

I have adapted the nonviolent communication model into a conscious communication program, integrated into a broad psychological and spiritual perspective. In 1995 I founded a training organization to teach conscious communication and trained facilitators. As a result many hundreds of people have now experienced the joy and satisfaction of transforming their relationships. Through my ongoing study of social psychology I have found even clearer explanations for why we act as we do, how to be aware of and express what we feel and to hear what other people are hoping for when they may not even realize it.

A New Psychology

This is not just another communication book teaching canned statements and formats that are artificial and don’t produce real change. This book goes to the source.

Creating Harmonious Relationships offers a new understanding of how your mind works. You will learn a startling truth—that your unconscious mind is controlling your life. Mistaken unconscious judgments lead you into damaging arguments and fights that are completely unnecessary.

While this is alarming, it is also good news, because you can’t change something you are unaware of. This book will show you how to recognize your unconscious judgments so that you can transcend conflict and form positive connections with people.

It is not enough to rephrase unconscious judgments; you must achieve a shift in consciousness. Creating Harmonious Relationships will show you, step by step, how to

1. recognize your unconscious judgments as they happen,

2. become conscious with specific centering techniques, and

3. communicate with others so they become conscious.

This book will teach you to connect with the good in other people. This is a different goal than that typically pursued in communication. In typical communication both parties are operating unconsciously, and even with new language the unconscious remains in control.

For example, imagine that your friend Nancy says, I’m getting sick and tired of Frank always dismissing my ideas as naïve. He ignores them and goes right ahead with his own plan.

Your empathic response to Nancy is, It sounds like you’re angry that Frank never goes along with your ideas. This response is well intended, but it confirms Nancy’s unconscious fear that Frank is bad. As Nancy continues to focus on Frank as the problem, he will defend himself. Your empathy has only exacerbated the conflict.

There is a better approach.

A truly empathic response would be, Nancy, are you frustrated because you’d like your ideas to be appreciated? This response taps into what Nancy really wants—to be heard and appreciated. It shifts her mind away from the negative judgment of Frank and she becomes more conscious of her positive intention. She realizes that, yes, she really does want to have her ideas heard and appreciated. With this recognition, she can begin to think and communicate about how this could happen.

Connecting with the good intentions in another person is true empathy. In this process the conscious mind of the other person wakes up. This transforms the situation and allows a resolution in which both people win. There is tremendous power in this simple idea.

This book will teach you how to override your unconscious judgments with conscious thought, and then how to listen and speak in a new way that is simple but effective.

What This Book Offers You

Conflicts are daily occurrences and many are mishandled, leading to anger, frustration, and sometimes even physical violence. Unconscious judgments are the cause. Without awareness of how to override your unconscious, you will remain trapped in cycles of attack and defense.

Here is the solution. Using clear language and entertaining examples, Creating Harmonious Relationships teaches you how to consciously improve any and all of your relationships. It shows, step by step:

•how to become aware when an unconscious decision is moving you toward conflict,

•how to use conscious override to create a positive connection instead,

•how to listen effectively to find what the other person is really feeling and intending,

•how to manage feelings, particularly anger and guilt,

•how to remain centered by not taking other people’s attack language personally,

•how to speak powerfully without judging, coercing, or attacking,

•how to carry out challenging communications, and

•how to resolve conflicts while enhancing relationships at the same time.

Conscious communication encourages people to disclose their feelings and the positive intentions that cause those feelings. Connecting at this deeper level results in profoundly satisfying relationships. This book will show you how to respond consciously, even in the heat of a conflict situation, and how to dramatically improve your connection with all the people in your life.

Let’s get started.

What disturbs people’s minds is not events but their